My daughter and her friends sometimes play an Expectations vs. Reality game. They talk about what they expect to do, and then spectacularly fail in the reality of attempting to do it. For example, they can talk about expecting to make a perfect dive like this …

And then in reality do this at the pool …

Except without all the somersaults. Just the flop at the end is more like it for them.

I had grandiose expectations to decorate a tree outside this year. My wife decorated the outside of the house and it looks great again this year. It always does. She’s an awesome decorator. Not to be outdone, I eyed a large tree on the side of our house that would look incredible decked out with any leftover lights. I suggested to my wife that some icicle lights would look good on that tree. Nope. She pointed out that the white wire on the green tree would look terrible, and those icicle lights should only be used along the gutter. Well, duh. I knew that. Of course, I was just testing her. She passed along to me several old sets of appropriate lights and off to work I went.

My expectations were something like this …

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